Canada Mass Shooting Suspect Had Mental Health Issues

Police identified the suspect in the deadly Tumbler Ridge shooting in Canada as an 18-year-old local woman who had a history of police visits to her home to check on her mental health.

She is suspected of shooting dead six people at the local high school on Tuesday after killing her mother and stepbrother at home.

Police revise death toll down

The suspect killed eight people, police clarified, and not nine as had been previously reported.

The confusion came after they mistakenly thought a victim airlifted to a hospital had died, police commander Dwayne McDonald said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Five of those killed at the school were students aged 12 and 13, while the sixth was a teacher, he said.

"There is no information at this point that anyone was specifically targeted," McDonald said, adding that the suspect had dropped out of the school some four years ago.

Police had earlier said that the suspect was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted wound at the school.

A long gun and a modified handgun were found at the school in Tumbler Ridge, a small community in a remote part of the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Before attacking the school, the suspect killed her mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at the family home, McDonald said.

These killings were discovered after another family member alerted neighbors, he said.

Motive for Tumbler Ridge mass shooting still unknown

McDonald said the motive for the shooting wasn't yet known and police hadn't found a suicide note.

He identified the suspect as transgender, saying that she began to transition to female six years ago and identified as female both "socially and publicly."

The suspect was known to officers who had made multiple visits to their home in response to mental health calls, McDonald said.

She was "apprehended for assessment and follow up" under the Mental Health Act and taken to the hospital on occasion, he said.

Officers had seized weapons from the shooter's residence, he said, and had been subsequently returned.

McDonald said no guns were registered in the name of the shooter. She had previously held a gun license, but this had lapsed.

Source: DW